Magic Mushroom Tour of Penland

by heatherkp

There were so many mushrooms on and around the grounds of Penland. There was a stretch of wet weather with afternoon showers almost every day (luckily I came at the tail end of this) which promoted the growth of more kinds of mushrooms than I’ve ever seen in one place. I can’t begin to identify them but I kept my eye’s peeled on my frequent walks. The first two images below were the most plentiful and these beauties got to be about 8″ tall and across at times. They emerged with small domed tops and gradually got larger and larger, lasting a week or so before breaking down.

These golden finger shaped fungus were one of my favorites. In fact, any of the gold and orange one’s were certain to catch my eye. Like flowers of the forest floor.

This was another favorite, with it’s upturned edges and smooth velvety surface. I was taking all these photo’s with out a flash and wish I’d brought along a tripod but didn’t want to be hiking with one most of the time. Since it’s slightly soft in focus I decided to add a little Kim Klassen Texture magic to it for Texture Tuesday. This White Mushroom/Fungus looks like coral don’t you think?

Glittering raindrops on a mushroom found inside an old tree log after the rain. I almost missed this one, there were several like it very well camouflaged but almost 6″ across. Once I spotted it I saw quite a few of these around.

This one was a bit smelly but there was quite an interesting surface texture on the underside of this partially decomposed mushroom. These trumpet type (below) were another favorite because they were quite hard to spot and such a beautiful form. Once I’d be there for a week or so I was able to spot more varieties as my eyes became “trained” to notice the more subtle mushrooms.

I loved mushroom scouting while at Penland (and I wasn’t the only one!) and was fascinated by the varieties, colors, textures and forms of these beauties which I’m sure were an inspiration to many of the artists there. When I needed to get away from the studio or needed some quite time to myself I’d often go walk with my camera ready to spot new magic mushrooms (and collect Mica, but I’ll save that for another post). Do you know the names of any of these?